


guess this is growing up

by taizi



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, M/M, Sibling AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 10:37:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12839403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taizi/pseuds/taizi
Summary: “Riku,” Sora starts carefully.“Don’t even. If I didn’t want to do this, I wouldn’t be doing it.”“But it’s your future,” Sora says, right on the edge of frustrated tears. “It’s important.”You’re my future, Riku thinks. “You’re important, too,” is what he says.





	guess this is growing up

The day they graduate high school, Riku tears up his college acceptance letter. 

He doesn’t want anything Sora doesn’t have. 

“Maybe it’s not too late,” Kairi says, fierce even with the telltale brightness in her eyes. “We can – we can call admissions, and find out what was wrong with his application, see if there’s anything – “

“He didn’t even apply,” Riku tells her, and hates the way it makes her face fall. 

It was their childhood dream, cradled carefully in quiet whispers and pinkie promises, revisited at every sleepover, every birthday party, every rainy recess that kept them stuck indoors. To only leave home behind together, the three of them. 

“Kairi, I  _can’t_ ,” Sora says the next time he sees her. Earnest and exhausted as he reaches across the table to pick up her hands, but always so bright with a tireless kind of caring. Desperately sorry to break the oldest promise between them and stuck doing exactly that anyway. “I’m really – I’m – “ 

Kairi rips her hands away to lunge over and hug all the breath out of him, arms wrapped tightly around his head and shoulders as if she could protect him that way.

“I understand. Of course I do.” 

Tiny hands tug at their shirts. Kairi pulls away with a wet laugh to reach down and lift Xion into her lap. Smiling down into solemn blue eyes, Kairi says, “Look after them for me while I’m gone.” 

Too young to understand, Xion nods. “Okay.”

Kairi drags Riku down into a hug before she leaves, and it’s the three of them sandwiched together in the open front door for the last time. She takes the steps two at a time, late to get home and finish packing before her evening train, and waves to them as she goes until their house is out of sight.

“Riku,” Sora starts carefully. 

“Don’t even. If I didn’t want to do this, I wouldn’t be doing it.” 

“But it’s your future,” Sora says, right on the edge of frustrated tears. “It’s important.” 

You’re my future, Riku thinks. “You’re important, too,” is what he says. 

From the outside, Sora has it all together. Barely pushing seventeen, working two jobs, easily coaxed into volunteering at the rec center or the church. People talk, and the whole of their small town is fond of him – so energetic! Such a  _nice_ boy! It’s nice to see someone his age so involved with his family!

How is your mother, Sora?

Oh, you know, he’ll laugh, work takes her all over the place! 

For someone who can’t tell a lie to save his life, Sora’s good at telling  _that_ tall tale. His parents opted out – his dad sixteen years ago, his mother more recently – because they have better things to do, apparently. 

‘Better than Sora’ is a concept Riku can’t wrap his mind around. Good riddance, he thinks. They’ll never know what they’re missing.

“At least the house is paid off,” Sora jokes sometimes, when the two of them are trying to make sense of taxes and insurance and all the hurdles it takes to get three little kids enrolled in kindergarten and first grade. 

They share the bedroom that used to be his parents’, moving the kids into the room that used to be Sora’s. When they get older, they’ll make the guest bedroom Xion’s. If Roxas and Ventus absolutely can’t get along well enough to share a room in their teen years, they’ll move one of the twins into the attic. 

It will work. Riku will  _make_ it work. 

Some days are harder than others. Some days Sora’s eyes are red and his smile is brittle, and he’s up earlier than the rest of them, nursing a cup of coffee that’s gone cold and staring out the kitchen window towards the sea. 

But unlike the example his parents left him to follow, he’s still here. Still lights up when the kids get home from daycare and trample inside screeching his name, still giggles when Riku kisses him over a busy stove even though it means dinner might burn. 

It’s not exactly the future they looked forward to years and years ago – when they were little kids with sticky hands, finger-painting their bright, candy-colored dreams – but the important things are still the same. 


End file.
